Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Biggest Tiger bug thus far: Sparse Images

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This is why I don't make major system updates until some time is passed. This bug might have cost me very dearly (ok, so I have multiple backups). Tiger is unusable for me until this is fixed.
It looks like Tiger has a serious problem with disk image data integrity:

[Dave Nanian, Shirt Pocket Software forum]
We've just reproduced a bug in Tiger's image handling that any SuperDuper! users should be aware of.

Basically, if you create a sparse image in Tiger and back up to it, everything is fine. You can unmount it, and the file size is as you'd expect.

If, however, the image is larger than about 1GB and you try to mount it, Tiger will destroy it, and set its size to 1008MB.

I cannot recommend that you rely on any application, including SuperDuper!, that uses images until this Tiger bug is fixed. Please, be careful -- and tell others to be careful too!

[Uwe Kempf] I'm experiencing serious problems with Tiger and Sparse Images:
- Create a new Sparse Image with AES128
- When it's finished, copy some JPGs onto it
- Eject the image volume
- Re-mount it
- All JPGs are broken
I could reproduce it on three machines (German Version of Tiger 8A428)

[Follow-up] I found a workaround for this problem:
- Create a new Sparse Image with AES128
- When it's finished, first UNMOUNT IT
- Re-mount it
- Then start to use it...
Don't use the image directly when it is automatically mounted after creation. First unmount it and remount it.
Repeat after me. 10.4.1.

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